August 7, 2026
3:31 pm

Can You Sell a North American Final Expense / Burial Policy? (2026)

No life settlement buyer will bid on a $10,000 burial policy, and the reason is arithmetic rather than attitude. Completing a settlement requires medical record retrieval, one or two independent life expectancy reports, verification of coverage with the carrier, escrow, and legal review. Those costs run into the thousands and they are essentially the same whether the face amount is $10,000 or $1 million. The secondary market therefore concentrates on face amounts of $100,000 and above, with a practical floor somewhere near $50,000 of net death benefit.

That does not mean there is nothing to do. It means the real question is different: given what this policy costs you every year and what it will pay, is it still worth keeping? That question has a numeric answer, and most people have never run it. This page gives you the test, tells you what to check on the contract before you run it, and explains how to identify which company inside the Sammons group actually issued your coverage, because that is the first thing a service call will ask you.

In This Article

Which company issued it: North American or Midland National
Simplified issue underwriting and what it bought you
The cost-per-thousand test
Riders you may already own
Pre-need contracts and assigned policies
When a North American policy is worth a full review
Frequently Asked Questions

Can You Sell a North American Final Expense / Burial Policy? (2026)

Which company issued it: North American or Midland National

North American Company for Life and Health Insurance was founded in 1886 in Chicago and later redomesticated to Iowa, where it is now headquartered in the West Des Moines area. Its domiciliary regulator is the Iowa Insurance Division.

It is one of two life carriers inside Sammons Financial Group. The other is Midland National Life Insurance Company, also Iowa-domiciled, with operations long associated with Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Both sit under Sammons Enterprises, Inc., a Dallas-based holding company that is employee-owned through an employee stock ownership plan and is among the larger employee-owned companies in the country. Because the two carriers share distribution channels and administrative infrastructure, families routinely mix them up, and a policy remembered as “the North American one” is sometimes a Midland National contract.

Get this right before you call anyone. The issuing company name is printed on the policy schedule page and on every annual statement and premium notice. Calling the wrong carrier with the right policy number wastes an afternoon; calling the right carrier with the full policy number and the issuing entity name gets you a values statement and a rider list in one call.

Iowa matters here for a second reason. Iowa’s viatical and life settlement provisions are codified at Iowa Code Chapter 508E, which licenses providers and brokers and sets disclosure requirements. That governs the carrier’s home state; the transaction itself would be governed by the law of the state where the policy owner lives. On a burial-sized policy neither is likely to come into play, but if a larger policy turns up in the same file it will.

Simplified issue underwriting and what it bought you

Small burial policies are typically sold on a simplified issue or guaranteed issue basis. There is no paramedical exam and no attending physician statement. Simplified issue asks a short list of knockout health questions, and the carrier checks the Medical Information Bureau, a prescription history database, and sometimes a motor vehicle record. Guaranteed issue asks nothing at all.

The trade for that convenience shows up in two places, and both are worth checking on your own contract.

First, price. Simplified and guaranteed issue coverage costs substantially more per thousand dollars of death benefit than fully underwritten coverage, because the carrier is pricing for a pool it could not examine. A healthy 62-year-old who could have passed an exam often paid two to three times what a fully underwritten policy would have cost. That is water under the bridge on an in-force policy, but it is central to the question of whether to keep paying.

Second, the graded or modified death benefit. On guaranteed issue and on many simplified issue contracts, death from natural causes during an initial period, usually two years and sometimes three, does not pay the face amount. It refunds premiums with interest, often in the range of 8 to 10 percent. Accidental death is normally covered in full from day one. Look on the schedule page for the phrases limited benefit period, graded death benefit, or modified benefit and find the exact end date.

The practical rule is blunt. If you are inside the graded window, keep paying, because surrendering at month twenty converts two years of premiums into a refund. If you are past it, the policy now pays full face value and that is a real reason to hold on.

The cost-per-thousand test

Here is the calculation almost nobody runs, and it usually settles the keep-or-drop question in five minutes. You need three numbers off your premium notice and schedule page: the annual premium, the face amount, and the number of years you have been paying.

Step one: annual cost per thousand. Divide the annual premium by the face amount in thousands. A $10,000 policy at $940 a year costs $94 per thousand per year. A $25,000 policy at $1,450 a year costs $58 per thousand.

Step two: cumulative premiums paid. Multiply the annual premium by the years paid. Fourteen years at $940 is $13,160 paid into a $10,000 policy. That is the point at which many people stop and feel they have been taken. Resist that reaction for one more step, because it is not the right test.

Step three: the forward test. Past premiums are sunk and cannot be recovered by any decision you make now. What matters is the premium from here forward against the benefit from here forward. If an insured is 84 with meaningful health issues, the expected remaining premium outlay is small relative to a benefit that is likely to be paid soon, and keeping the policy is clearly correct even though total premiums have already exceeded the face amount. If the insured is 68 and healthy, expected remaining premiums may substantially exceed the face amount, and reduced paid-up coverage or surrender deserves a serious look.

Step four: compare against alternatives. Get the current cash surrender value from the carrier and ask what reduced paid-up death benefit the policy would support if you stopped paying. On a policy with real accumulated value, reduced paid-up frequently leaves a meaningful permanent benefit with no further premiums ever due. See reduced paid-up insurance and cash surrender value, and the broader framing in whether to sell or stop paying premiums.

One small mechanical saving while you are on the phone: monthly bank draft typically costs more over a year than annual mode, often in the high single digits to low teens as a percentage. Switching to annual or semi-annual billing on a policy you intend to keep is free money.

Face amount	Annual premium	Cost per $1,000 per year	Years until premiums equal face	Reasonable read
$10,000	$940	$94	About 11	Keep if insured is elderly or impaired; reassess if healthy
$15,000	$1,020	$68	About 15	Check reduced paid-up before dropping
$25,000	$1,450	$58	About 17	Usually worth keeping past the graded period
$25,000	$2,600	$104	About 10	Price surrender and reduced paid-up carefully
$100,000+	Varies	Varies	Not the right test	Get a full policy review; a market may exist

Riders you may already own

Ask the carrier for a complete rider list rather than relying on memory. Three provisions turn up often on small permanent policies and each can matter more than the face amount.

An accelerated death benefit provision lets a terminally ill insured draw a portion of the face amount early, typically on certification of a limited life expectancy. On a burial-sized contract this is frequently the single most valuable feature, and it requires no sale and no third party.
A waiver of premium provision may stop premiums during a qualifying disability. Older contracts sometimes carry this and the owner has forgotten it.
An automatic premium loan feature pays a missed premium from cash value rather than letting the contract lapse. Find out whether yours has it and whether it is switched on, because it is the difference between a late payment and a terminated policy.

Also confirm whether the policy is already paid up. Some older small whole life contracts were sold on limited-pay designs, twenty-pay or paid-up at 65, and the family is still sending money on a contract that requires none. It happens more than you would expect.

Pre-need contracts and assigned policies

Check who the beneficiary is and whether an assignment is recorded. If the policy was arranged at a funeral home rather than by an insurance agent, it may be a pre-need funding contract that has already been irrevocably assigned to the funeral provider. In that case the benefit is contractually directed to pay for goods and services selected in advance, the family cannot sell it, and in most states cannot surrender it for cash without the provider’s release.

These arrangements are usually regulated separately from ordinary life insurance, often through a state funeral or cemetery board with its own rules on trusting of funds and on what happens when a provider closes or is acquired. If the funeral home that sold the arrangement no longer exists, start with the state licensing board rather than the insurer, because the board tracks successorship and the insurer’s call center generally does not.

The point is to know which of the two you have while there is still time to act on it. Families most often discover the distinction during estate administration, when nothing can be changed. Our page on old industrial and burial policies covers the older versions of these contracts, some of which date to weekly door-collected premiums.

When a North American policy is worth a full review

Everything above assumes a small policy. If the same file contains a larger North American contract, the analysis changes completely, and that happens often enough to be worth checking. The company’s individual block runs heavily to level term, sold for many years under the ADDvantage Term name, and to indexed universal life and guaranteed universal life designs. A $250,000 or $500,000 contract on a 75-year-old with health impairments is squarely inside the profile the secondary market underwrites.

We are not going to assert that North American markets a small-face burial product. We could not confirm one as of 2026, and the honest description of the individual block is that it centers on term and on accumulation-oriented permanent designs. If you are holding a $10,000 policy that you believe came from this group, verify the issuing entity, because it may be Midland National or another carrier entirely.

Pine Lake Life Solutions does not purchase policies and is not licensed in every state. On a burial-sized policy the free review is not about producing an offer, because there will not be one. It is about finding the graded period end date, the accelerated death benefit provision, the paid-up status, or the reduced paid-up election that changes what your family actually receives. Send the policy cover page and call (305) 209-7183. For related reading see minimum policy size, what to do when premiums are unaffordable, and North American term policies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will anyone buy a $10,000 burial policy?

No. The fixed costs of a settlement, including medical record retrieval, independent life expectancy reports, escrow, carrier verification and legal review, are similar regardless of face amount. Below roughly $50,000 of net death benefit there is nothing left to divide among a buyer, a broker and the seller. Anyone promising an offer at that size is not describing how this market works.

Is my policy from North American or Midland National?

Read the issuing company name on the schedule page or on any annual statement. Both are Iowa-domiciled life carriers inside Sammons Financial Group and they share distribution channels, so families mix them up constantly. Having the correct entity name plus the full policy number turns a frustrating service call into a five-minute one.

How do I know if my policy still has a graded death benefit?

Look on the schedule page for the words limited benefit period, graded death benefit, or modified benefit, and find the stated duration, usually two or three years from issue. During that window, death from natural causes returns premiums plus interest rather than the face amount, while accidental death is typically covered in full. If you are inside it, keep paying.

I have paid in more than the policy will pay out. Should I stop?

Not automatically. Past premiums are sunk and no decision recovers them. The right test is forward-looking: expected remaining premiums against the benefit likely to be paid. For an elderly or impaired insured, remaining outlay is small relative to a near-term benefit, so keeping is correct. For a healthy insured in their sixties, reduced paid-up coverage or surrender deserves serious consideration.

What is reduced paid-up insurance and how do I get a quote?

It converts the policy’s accumulated cash value into a smaller death benefit that is fully paid up, with no further premiums ever due. Call the issuing carrier and ask for the reduced paid-up amount available today, alongside the current cash surrender value. It requires no medical review and no one’s approval, and it is almost always a better outcome than letting the policy lapse.

Does North American sell a final expense product?

We could not confirm a small-face burial product marketed under the North American name as of 2026. The individual block centers on level term, sold for many years as ADDvantage Term, and on indexed and guaranteed universal life designs. If you hold a small policy you associate with the company, verify the issuing entity on the contract before assuming which carrier to contact.

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